I’m glad I stopped going to GDC after it changed its name from CGDC. It looks as if we’re going to have to launch a new conference for game designers who actually value gamedev history one of these days. Corporatization and subsequent SJW infestation have completely ruined something that used to be the highlight of my year back in the day.
The Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) announced that it would be honoring Nolan Bushnell, the co-founder of Atari, with its Pioneer Award.
Brianna Wu took to Twitter to disagree.
What followed was the #NotNolan campaign and a quick article in The Verge that would result in the GDC rescinding the award the very next day, instead choosing to honor “the pioneering and unheard voices of the past.”
I conducted my own research into the situation. I talked to several women who worked with Nolan Bushnell back in the 1970s. I talked with a man who has researched Atari for decades and wrote an 800 page book on the history of the company. I talked with Allan Alcorn, the engineer who designed Pong. They all provide a story much different to the one currently reported on by the press.
Several hours after Brianna Wu’s tweets, Elizabeth Sampat, who bills herself as a game designer and activist, posted the first of the #NotNolan tweets. Two minutes later, Jennifer Scheurle, another game designer and activist, followed it up with her own tweet. The #NotNolan campaign had begun.
The early stage of the #NotNolan campaign consisted of a total of 26 tweets sent out by 18 accounts. Several of these accounts are listed as game developers, including a developer from Bungie, one from Blizzard, and one from id Software. These 26 tweets received a cumulative total of 221 retweets and 645 likes — and likely fewer than that when The Verge wrote about them, as I’m counting them several days later.
In the article, the writer cited the examples of sexist behavior that Brianna Wu claimed, as well as some of the 26 tweets that comprised the NotNolan twitter campaign. It concluded, “Although many industries, from Hollywood to media, have had their ‘me too’ moments highlighting the predatory or sexist behavior of prominent men, video games has not” [sic] — and here she cites as evidence a post on the Patreon account of Elizabeth Sampat lamenting the lack of a MeToo moment in the video game industry. The GDC is quoted at the end saying they had not known about Bushnell’s behavior, but “will look at these more closely.”
The Verge article was posted at 8:46pm that night. On the next day, at 11:20am, the GDC rescinded the Pioneer award from Nolan Bushnell.
Unbelieveable. Literally Wu (real name John Flynt) has really become a cancerous, self-promoting little wart on the backside of the game industry. A microscopic and insignificant freakshow, but an increasingly irritating one.
I’d like to see game developers and game designers start boycotting GDC over this. I would, except I already stopped attending because it had become too commercial and too crowded.